Badgers hire Stanford assistant

Bobbie Kelsey talks to reporters after she was hired as Wisconsin women's basketball coach, Monday April 11, 2011, in Madison, Wis. Kelsey was an assistant coach at Stanford.

MADISON  Bobbie Kelsey, speaking with an intoxicating mix of passion and poise, didn’t waste a second in sharing her vision of the Wisconsin women’s basketball program.

“This is a top program or I wouldn’t be here,” Kelsey, an assistant at Stanford the last four seasons, said Monday after she was introduced as the sixth head coach in program history. “I could have just stayed at Stanford and be satisfied with that.

“This program can be great. Not just good, great. It can be on the national level. You can win national championships here. You’re in a great location.

“It’s not in the middle of nowhere. You can get to major metropolitan cities from here in two hours. What’s not to love?”

Kelsey, 38, replaces Lisa Stone, who was fired last month after eight seasons at UW.

Contract terms were not revealed Monday.

However, UW athletic director Barry Alvarez said neither annual salary nor length of contract was discussed during the interview process. Alvarez said he would meet with Kelsey to work out a contract.

Stone’s annual salary for 2010-’11 was $281,146.

Kelsey and UW-Green Bay coach Matt Bollant generally were considered to top two candidates.

According to Alvarez, UW officials considered the hiring of a rising assistant from a top program such as Stanford vs. a proven head coach at a mid-major program such as UW-Green Bay.

“I think it’s all about who is in the position,” Alvarez said. “It is obvious we’ve had success here by hiring coaches who previously had been head coaches at a smaller school.

“And we’ve hired coaches here who have been successful at other programs as assistants and come in here and been very successful.

“You can look at it either way. We did look at it both ways. And then we had to weigh everything but it gets down to that individual person and somebody that you believe can take this program where we believe this program should be.”

Kelsey, a native of Pontiac, Mich., helped the Cardinal to three Final Four appearances in five years and was a member of the 1992 national championship team. She was a team co-captain in 1995 and ‘96, was voted the team’s Most Inspirational Player in 1992 and ‘96 and was named the team’s most improved player in 1993. She earned her B.A. in communication from Stanford in 1996.

She does have one tie to the UW program. Kelsey was in her second season as an assistant at Florida in 1999-2000 when the Gators lost to UW, 75-74, in the WNIT title game at the Kohl Center.

Asked how long it took her to accept the job once it was offered, Kelsey said: “About two seconds.”

Asked whether observers would be surprised to hear her talk about national championships at a program that has never won a league title, Kelsey

didn’t flinch.

“People are going to make comments no matter what you say,” she said. “If you don’t think big then it’s not going to happen. Now I’m not saying next year. I’m not getting up here making promises I cannot deliver.